The new design and new features

Samsung introduces a brand new design paradigm with the S5 - one that still uses plastic as the basis material, but flaunts a perforated rear pattern, that is quite different than the "stitched leather" looks of the Note 3. Besides the Charcoal Black and Shimmery White, the Galaxy S5 will arrive with two extra colors at launch - Electric Blue, and the aforementioned Copper Gold that you can see in the pictures.

The Galaxy S5 uses a 5.1" 1080x1920-pixel Super AMOLED display and while the resolution has not changed from the S4, Samsung has improved the display making it go brighter at peak brightness (great for outdoor use) and dimmer at the lowest levels (great for night-time viewing).

The newly-coined quad-core Snapdragon 801 (Qualcomm's MSM8974-AC chipset), clocked at 2.5 GHz, is what's powering the Galaxy S5. The new chipset supports fast 150 Mbps LTE-Advanced download speeds, and Samsung claims that the S5 will support up to 8 LTE Cat4 bands on all global carriers. There is also an innovative feature in the handset, called Download Booster, which speeds up downloads by combining the Wi-Fi/ac and LTE-Advanced connectivity.

The 2800 mAh battery unit in the Galaxy S5 can thankfully be swapped out, in the best of Samsung's design traditions. It is rated for the respectable 21 hours of talk time on a charge, and 16 days of standby. Samsung bragged that the Galaxy S5 can endure up to 10 hours of web browsing, and up to 12 hours of HD video playback, which are impressive numbers indeed.

Rugged and sporty with a heart-rate monitor

The Galaxy S5 is IP67 certified, rugged, which means that it is completely sealed from dust, and will remain functional even after you dunk it in up to three feet (1m) of water, for as long as half an hour.

The other big new feature is the swipe Finger Scanner embedded in the home key. It provides biometric authentication for unlocking the phone, or for secure mobile payments transactions. On its back, right below the camera the Galaxy S5 features a heart rate monitor.

New camera: bokeh and improved HDR

The camera unit now provides the fastest 0.3 seconds autofocus times of all handsets - a feat made possible by the dedicated image signal processors in the Snapdragon 801 chipset. Since we have the same 1.1 micron pixels, the sensor has become slightly larger, at 1/2.5", to accommodate the increase in pixel count.

Besides 4K video recording at 30fps, the processor also allows for a few extra camera tricks, too. Selective Focus allows users to tap on objects they want to look sharp, and the rest of the background gets blurred, achieving a shallow depth of field (DOF) effect without special lenses.

Samsung also touts that an advanced High Dynamic Range (HDR) mode that goes for both photos and real-time video capture. The 16MP shooter also boasts f/2.2 aperture, and Samsung's new ISOCELL technology, which should bring better exposed and blur-free photos in low light.

Samsung Galaxy S5: release date, carriers and price

The Samsung Galaxy S5 release date is set for April 11 across an impressive 150 countries worldwide. Price is not yet announced, but if we had to guess we’d say $199 on contract and around $600 full retail. Below, you'd find a list of the carriers and retailers where the S5 will be available.

Samsung sucks at designing the phones... still apple is after samsung saying they copy the design... did apple mean to say their phone is so horribly ugly? apple should stop down grading itself by saying samsung a copy... HTC one will be nice to blame as copy

lol. samsung does suck at designing phones but how much do you think sammy fans suck when they choose cheap plastic ? what apple knows is that samsung is doing business otherwise they wouldnt bother. but samsung actually knows no other way than copying. The new gear fit smartwatch is actually a high end knock off of fit bit, even the name is copied.

They dont choose due to cheap plastic, they choose due to high specs n those features which no one else has yet to offer... try using Sam's high end phone n then use some other andriod OEM... you will understand why people choose samsung... samsung's touchwiz is may be laggy but the experience it offer is great... only outside plastic body of the phone is not good looking... so samsung is lacking in designing...

I think most people who read the article about the S5, want to get more information about the S5.
But when they realize what they read is just the same information they become sick.

I used to do the same thing and asked why that PA pay more attention to the samsung product.
But eventually I understand that all of this is just one of the greatest samsung strategy "aggresive marketing".

1. i think IP58 of Z2 is much better than IP67 of GS5.
2. i hate over saturated colors
3. heartbeat monitor and fingerprint scanner? really? i'd rather have an extra 1GB RAM than this.
4. touch wiz... zzzzzzz

will wait for LG G2/ HTC One replacements. oh well... hoping for Lumia 1520 prices to go down after these hype on 'flagship android' phones =) itching on an upgrade for my nokia E6 :p

31.21babydoll12 (unregistered)

Interested to see z2 and s5 in a IPxx test. S5 is rated dust tight (6) while the z2 beats it with higher water rate (8). Although I must say, if the back cover of the s5 is removable im curious to see how it can rate so high as 6. Most fluke meters are extremely rugged and they only rate 5/6/7 and this is with a rubbery full body and limited access panels.

After seeing all the imperfect phone designs come out I'm glad I still kept my iPhone 5. Jailbroken and better than most of these half-designed gimmick phones. Oppo and Apple are the company's I will stick with.

Seems to me that we're running out of differences between phones. Heart rate monitor? Really? You can buy one for any phone in the play store.

Specs seem good, and the soft touch back is a step up from the S4, but what is really so new?
Technology marches on and every year the phones get a little faster and more powerful, but there's nothing compelling about it that makes me want to buy it. In normal use, does anyone think this is any different than the S4?

The plastic Samsung uses is less expensive, more durable and rugged, and much lighter than glass or metal. You can bend these covers over without damaging them. This makes for lighter phone. When the user then adds a case, which a great many people do, the look of the back cover then becomes irrelevant, while the weight remains much lower than it would have been with glass or metal.

The ability to remove the cover is a big deal, allowing battery replacement, along with the capability of replacing the cover with an after-market model.

Finally, the plastic material provides less interference with signal than metal, allowing greater design flexibility for the internals of the phone.

I loved the uni-body design of the Lumia 1020, but I missed the removeable cover, and it was hefty. The iPhone felt good and heavy (and thus high quality) in my hand, but that's a disadvantage with a proper-sized screen. The unexpected heaviness of the og droid was cool as well, but in a 5"+ design, that would have worn thin pretty quickly.

The plastic back is a trade-off, but so is the design of the Z1 and the 5S. I understand that it doesn't appeal to everyone. It would be a boring world if we all like the same things. But it appeals to plenty, so this dismissive and sometimes snobbish drumbeat of how cheap it feels wears thin after a while. The impulse to assume we're smart and the rest of the world is a bunch of idiot sheap is powerful, but there is wisdom in numbers. The assumption should be that, when we the enthusiasts disagree with the masses, the freakishness is probably on us rather than on them.

S5 is stupid who the hell would want a 5.1 inch screen who the hell would want a 1080p super gayoled when u can't tell the difference between 1080 and 720 + the iphone 5S has better fingerprint scanner doesn't lag and is 64bit

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